defendnz

Defence for Civil Defence

2011-10-13T20:43:00.000-07:00

The oil contamination of the Bay of Plenty following the grounding of the MV Rena on the Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga is perhaps the third example in as many years of the inevitable role the defence force plays in times of civil emergency. The first example was the Pike River mine disaster, the second was the Christchurch earthquakes (which continue to this day) and the third is the Rena disaster. The simple fact is that when the poo hits the fan the Government expects to call upon a corpus of human and capital resources kept in reserve for emergency situations.

Unfortunately this is not how the military sees itself.

The military sees itself as an organisation equipped to combat similar organisations. It's a bit like a military sports team. They admire one-another's uniforms, train together, and do lots of manly boasting about how tough they are over a drink or ten (if they are the Navy). They are, in effect, the national penis.

The unfortunate thing about this outlook is that, first of all (by international standards) we are not very big, and secondly, by trying to be so hairy chested in some departments we are sinking vast amounts of taxpayer funding into resources which frankly are not very useful most of the time.

Consider these two ships

KV Svalbard of the Norwegian Coastguard

Vessel type: Naval/naval Auxiliary Vessel

Gross tonnage: 6,150 tons
Length: 104 m
Beam: 19 m
Draught: 6.5 m
Speed 17 knots
Sea-days: 300 per year

She is designed to break up to a metre of ice, flies two Lynx or NH90 helicopter, mounts a 57mm autocannon, has fire fighting capability, and oil spill tanks and equipment (because Norway has an enormous offshore oil industry). She is the largest ship in the Norwegian armed forces.

HMNZS Te Mana
Vessel Type MEKO 200 class frigate
Gross tonnage: 3,600 tons
Length: 118 m
Beam: 15 m
Draught: 4m
Speed 27 knots
Sea days: 120 per year (NZDF Annual report)

Te Mana is a ice class 1C (minimum), carries a 127mm gun, Sea Sparrow missile system, Phalanx Close In Weapon System, six torpedo tubes, 0.50-calibre machine guns. She carries one KAMAN SH-2G Super Seasprite helicopter. Te mana has an extensive ASW capability and battle management system.

KV Svalbard cost US$80 million (when commissioned 15 December 2001). Te Mana cost US$331 million (when commissioned 10 December 1999). In other words we could have bought four Svalbards for the price of one Te Mana.

What have we gained?

Te Mana is a fighting ship. She is built to fight hot wars against aircraft, surface combatants and submarines at the same time. But who was she going to fight?

The Soviet empire collapsed eight years before she was commissioned. The Chinese? They still haven't invaded Taiwan a mere 100nm miles from the mainland. They simply don't seem to be interested in military confrontation. And a decade later the Indonesians still don't have a single ship to match Te Mana and they would have to get past the Australians who are the boss of the whole of South East Asia by virtue of airpower. Even if she did fight she would still do well to stop an anti-shipping missile from doing serious damage to her. USS Stark was taken out by two Exocets and she was better armed than Te Mana.

What have we lost?

We have lost the ability to better police our EMZ (the fourth largest in the world) because one ship can't be in as many places as four. We have lost the ability to operate in the ice where the Patagonian Toothfish is hunted illegally and defend our claims to the Ross Ice Shelf, and we have lost the ability to respond effectively to major environmental catastrophes such as the Rena.

The time has come to knock some common sense into the military. They cannot be allowed to get away with wrapping themselves in the flag and hiding their fundamental inefficiencies and narrow-mindedness behind World War Two tales of yellow peril invaders from the North.

We do need defence of New Zealand interests at sea but not from monocled U-boat captains or hordes of asians bent on invasion (Asian business migrants have long been perfectly welcome to settle anyway). But we need to defend our natural resources from illegal incursion and the results of occassional idiocy. The taxpayers of New Zealand should demand more value from an organisation with well over four billion dollars worth of assets than what they are getting.

Christchurch Interim Post

2011-02-27T23:50:00.000-08:00

I have not posted to this blog during the successive Christchurch earthquakes for the simple reason that the lessons from these events are still not clear. Some quick points are however useful to note:

* I think I ( and everyone else) have under-rated the importance of readily deployed water piping and pumping systems. The damage to water reticulation is without doubt the most lasting and difficult problem facing the city.

* Christchurch has been fortunate (to date) that the earthquakes have struck during mild weather. The need for shelter and fuel during this rescue effort has been reduced. This has also avoided the danger of fire, as the city as a great many wood burners.

* The continuous nature of seismic disturbance is not something I had incorporated into my thinking. I pray these things do not come in threes.

Defence White Paper - Business as almost usual

2010-11-02T16:05:00.001-07:00

The Government's much vaunted Defence White Paper is yet another mediocre shuffling of deckchairs which seems principally concerned with protecting the institutions under review rather than providing better value to taxpayers. Compared to my defence review it is yet another unimaginitive exercise in arse protection by the same old duffers that cost taxpayers 1% of all New Zealand's turnover (GDP) for no good reason.

In fact value to taxpayers doesn't get any attention from the review at all. No attempt has been made to determine an appropriate level of expenditure against the costs and risks of being unprepared (as my review did). Its principal concern is the shift of the defence force from a notional cadre organisation preparing for national mobilisation to a more professional structure which seeks to enhance the force's ability to retain its expertise, and contract out that expertise which can be contracted out.This was assumed in my own private defence review, first published four years ago. It does not require a panel of assorted bigwigs to see the inevitable need of this sort of arrangement.

What is simply not addressed by this White Paper is what the Defence Force is actually meant to do given that we have no obvious challenges to our sovereignty other than foreign fishing boats that thumb their noses at our inadequate EEZ protection. The White paper stresses again and again that defence of our sovereignty is the prime purpose of the Force. If so it is extremely badly structured to do that. We have too few and too limited EEZ protection vessels, too few and too restricted EEZ protection aircraft, and two enormously expensive frigates equipped to fight non-existent Russian submarines. Its called putting too many eggs in one basket and we do it all the time.

What the Defence Force is actually structured to do, and indeed is STILL the underpinning message of the review, is make small but useful contributions to the efforts of the Australians. That is why we have the same frigates, the same helicopters and the same rifles as the Australians. The Defence Force is, to all intents and purposes, STILL run from Canberra, not Wellington.

I would not be very surprised if in the not too distant future we sell a stock of our LAV-IIIs and replace them with the Australian Bushmaster vehicle, despite the fact that it makes no more sense in New Zealand than the LAV III does.

The Minister of Defence, Dr Wayne Mapp, has pointed out recently that the new NH90 helicopters will be extremely expensive, costing an unbelievable (compared to what others pay for them) NZ$80 million a unit! That means just having a helicopter costs NZDF $8m in capital costs before we even get to operational costs. If they are ever to be used they will have to spread around the country. Otherwise, like the LAVs, they will just have to sit in their nice cosy hangars in Ohakea or wait for something to carry them to deployment in other nations. The NH90 is a good helicopter (although there are better) for New Zealand but only if it is used for New Zealand, not kept in store awaiting "Tomorrow when war began" or equally unlikely events.

The fundamental problem is one of doctrine. NZDF doctrine is firmly rooted in the 20th century. It envisages a clear enemy. It presupposes political certainty. It ignores economic, biological and cyber warfare and developments like Twitter. It ignores environmental catastrophes and natural disasters. It just wants to get to the hairy-chested bang-bang bit. The doctrine I proposed in my Defence Review is a 21st Century one. It assumes a multidimensional environment where politics comes before guns. It assumes most deployments will be civil in nature, not military. It is as much about preventing violence as it is responding to it.

A future defence force should be as much an economic as a protective force. It must be capable of responding to all hazards not just military ones. It must be aware of the multidimensional world we live in, where achievement of military objectives could completely destroy political ones. It must be largely a logistics and infrastructural organisation with civilian and uniformed components. But it also needs a sharp end able to prosecute short sharp violent encounters with maximum effectiveness.

The defence force is a useful asset but only when assisting other agencies (including diplomatic ones) to enhance and protect New Zealand's people and economy. The problem with the White Paper is it persists with the myth that defence cannot be thought about in terms of economic return on investment. Only by adopting this outlook will defence ever try to find as many ways as possible to safeguard New Zealand than just sit around shining their shoes and dreaming about past battles while waiting for a new Japanese Imperial Navy to reappear on the horizon.

The fact is tomorrow's war will begin not with explosions but with a cough and a runny nose.

Defence Review

2010-10-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

Rod Deane's defence review appears to have found it can save $50-100 million p.a from the NZDF budget [http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/politics/4193026/Review-of-military-set-to-free-up-100m]. The trick is to use civilians in place of soldiers apparently. Wow! My review suggested the same thing years ago.

But at the same time the Government is committing to replace two anti-submarine-warfare frigates in 2030 at an estimated cost of $2 billion. On a simple piggy-bank approach to finance that would be $100 million a year the government will be putting aside for its future Navy. So saving $100 million by shifting jobs around will be cancelled out by buying hardware we don't need in twenty years time.

Am I the only one who can see the Minister of Defence is being sold a pup? Unless the Government thinks about what we need to be defended from, and how, promising to spend money on future toys is just so much horse-shit.

The fundamental problem is the way the military clings to:

1. The ridiculous notion we will refight WW2 (this time against China apparently)

2. Its traditional structure with its emphasis on areas of mobility (sailing, flying or driving) rather than spheres of operation (strategic or tactical).

The shit-for-brains analysis on which this capital acquisition projection is based is economically illiterate.

The Chinese in 2030 are not the Japanese Empire of 1930. China already has a Japanese Imperial "Co-prosperity sphere" and Australia and New Zealand are already in it! That's why Australasia is booming and America and Europe aren't. China is not about to start a war with its south Pacific mine, Australia, any more than Australia is going to fight China. The idea we might fight China shoulder-to-shoulder with America is the kind of idiot fantasy that only sad old scroats drowning their racist sorrows down the RSA would come up with.

What about Indonesia? Well, Indonesia is not going to invade Australia -other than RSA scroat fantasies like Australian movies. Indonesia is too poor and disorganised to attack a mini-superpower like Australia. Fundamentally it can't get air superiority and without that you can't invade anyone. So get this straight: Australia's military is better armed than anyone else in South East Asia. Australia could probably be nuclear armed about as fast as Japan and Germany if they wanted to be. If anything Australia is more likely to attack Indonesia.

The problem is Indonesia is unstable and could fracture badly and Australia has a rather paternalistic and racist outlook toward its northern neighbour. But Australia can't invade Indonesia because its too big, and Indonesia can't defeat Australia because it's too technically hopeless. The result will be more localised messes in Aceh or Papua like the one in East Timor.

In such situations big piles of capital with millions of dollars worth of anti-submarine warfare systems are not necessarily the most sensible contribution New Zealand can make. Only a one-eyed Navy scroat would think so. Most people would think air support and infantry would be more useful.

The fact is Mapp is failing to tame the New Zealand Defence Force. He has not got any serious strategic analysis to suggest why we need to replace the capability we have today with a more modern one later on. All he is doing is letting the brass keep their shiny bottoms on their chairs while they produce next to no value for New Zealand taxpayers.

The NZDF does need aeroplanes. Yesterday. Almost all our strategic and tactical needs rely on long range, economical, high capacity air lift. Airlift and helicopter air support are dual-use civilian and military and you'd be hard pressed to have too much of it in an island nation 2,000 miles from anywhere. We also need ships, but certainly not the kind the NZ Navy is wedded to.

By 2030 almost 100 years will have passed since New Zealand was last directly threatened by war. There will be robots on our streets, if not in our homes. There will be biological crises and our agriculture will be more valuable than ever. Directed energy weapons like Star-trek's phaser will be in existence. But the idea of conflict will be different. Finance will be even more connected to foreign policy. War and policing will be almost the same thing. Intelligence gathering will be huge and the internet will be a bigger realm of conflict.

In this environment deciding now to buy big boats twenty years hence, is just plain nonsensical.
Dr Mapp needs to stop listening to scroats and use his brain.

Humvee an IED death trap

2010-08-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

In the wake of the death of Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell the Army is examining whether its use of the "armoured" Humvee was the best option for its security patrols in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan. The short answer is simple. It wasn't.

The American Army has been seeking alternatives to the "armoured" Humvee ever since 2003 when the politicians discovered, what most commanders already knew: the Humvee was never built to protect its occupants against mines and Improvised Explosive Devices. The Humvee was designed in the 70s to be a replacement for the jeep. Despite its reputation for size and gas guzzling, it is actually a light vehicle in military terms and unfortunately bolting on armour and spall lining here and there does not overcome the fact that its wheel arches and body shape just weren't designed to deflect explosive forces away from vehicle occupants.

On the other hand one must be reasonable. Some Improvised Explosive Devices in Lebanon have destroyed Merkava III tanks, and armoured protection doesn't get any better than that. The simple fact is that when one group of people lie in wait to ambush another group of people in vehicles armed and everyone is armed with machine-guns and explosives the liklihood is someone is going to get hurt. To date New Zealand had been very lucky no one has been killed. Sadly for Lieutenant Tim O'Donnell and his family and friends, our luck finally ran out.

But that doesn't get the armed forces completely off the hook. Had the lead vehicle been an RG-33 as recommended by my study it is possible that Lieutenant O'Donnell would still be alive. The RG-33 has a good track record of resisting mines and IEDs and is certainly better protected than the armoured Pinzgauer or armoured Humvee. So looked at from this perspective the question that has to be asked is not could the vehicle provided better protection but what led to the situation which we find ourselves in where it did not?

The first and most obvious point is that none of the vehicles on that patrol were bought by the New Zealand Army. They were leased. This raises difficult questions.

Why is the New Zealand Army paying a 10% capital charge on $750 million worth of Light Armoured Vehicles which haven't been deployed to Afghanistan PLUS leases on poorly armoured vehicles which have been deployed to Afghanistan?

Why are New Zealand troops not using Pinzgauers (except the SAS) and would they be any safer if they were?

The answers to most of these questions are quite simple. When the Army bought its vehicles the problem of deploying them economically was not part of the equation. The Defence Force talks up its engagement around the world but aside from its frigates can't deliver much more than pedestrians with 50kg of kit to lug around.

This isn't the Army's fault alone. It is the entire Defence Force's fault. When shopping time rolls around every thirty years or so it focuses too much on high-tech bang-bang and not enough on simple logistics.

The fact is our infantry are now, and have always been, our most important force. We are not the kind of nation that launches Tomahawk missiles at people thousands of miles away guided by satellite spies and robot drones. New Zealanders are up close and personal soldiers where as much is achieved by jaw-boning as it is accurate shooting. That means the whole military side of the defence force should be built around delivering and supporting our infantry while they carry out their mission.

The system should be capable of delivering infantry to the deployment zone along with their vehicles and equipment both by air and by sea. Unfortunately we don't have heavy air transporters and we don't have low cost sea transport either. Without this core logistical backbone we simply can't derive any value from our own vehicle fleet. We end up being dependent on other armies cast-offs to protect our soldiers.

My study had two suggestions for long range heavy transport. One was this Landing Ship Tank which can carry 24 tanks 6,000 nautical miles at a go at a relatively low cost. The other was the IL-76 aircraft which is routinely leased by the United Nations for humanitarian work. With a bit of squishing the IL76 could carry three RG-33 per flight. Neither of them are as fancy as the HMNZS Canterbury, or the Boeing 757, but they are far better at carrying tonnes of stuff, long distances.

That way you could deliver a full range of vehicles and helicopters we have already bought and paid for, to protect our troops that need them, rather than paying to use some-one else's, while our own store of capital equipment never leaves storage.

But would that, in the end, have saved Tim O'Donnell's life? One has to be honest and admit possibly not. An ambusher always has the advantage and can pick the time, the place and the target. My study does not envisage patrols purely of armoured Behemouths rumbling around. I have always supported the use of Toyota Landcruisers simply because they are easy to fix in the field. If an IED was fired at a landcruiser its occupants wouldn't stand much chance.

Could the Defence Force do better? I think so. Would it guarantee our record of remaining casualty free in Afghanistan? No other military force has ever escaped that country as lightly as we have to date, so I rather think not. Afghanistan has defeated every empire that has tried to crush it. The odds of our "winning" there, are poor.

Chile needs to rethink its defence force

2010-03-02T00:05:00.000-08:00

The devastation of Concepcion will reportedly cost the Chilean economy 15% of its GDP. The scenes of destruction, confusion and looting are a chilling reminder of the kind of risks all nations on the ring of fire run from earthquakes.The remarkable thing is that death toll, currently at 700, is surprisingly light for the size of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake. By contrast Kobe earthquake at 6.8 magnitude killed 6,434. The Kobe earthquake cost Japan 2.5% of Japan's GDP.

GDP is, of course an odd measure for the impact of the Earthquake. Yes Chile will take a hit to its national income. It will be forced to spend just when it has less revenue, and that is likely to mean borrowing. But the GDP equation will count all economic activity - including rebuilding - as an economic benefit. Despite a huge destruction of capital the replacement of that capital will appear like a good thing.In terms of opportunity cost, of course it isn't. Nobody needs an 8.8 magnitude earthquake and in competitive terms the quake is likely to set Chile back at least five, and possibly even ten years.

There will be internal displacement and migration and there will probably be political ramifications as well. Fortunately incoming President, billionaire Sebastian Pinara will have a clear mandate for emergency leadership when he takes power in nine days time. With chaos on the streets it will be easy to exercise more force than perhaps left wing incumbent Michelle Bachellet would choose.

On paper Chile's army is poorly organised for this sort of operation. It's just spent a fortune on 120 old German Leopard 2's but only has about 600 trucks. For a force with 45,000 soldiers that is pretty hopeless. Worse, a large part of the national defence administration is now buried in the rubble in Concepcion.

Chile's Navy is similarly militaristic. Its two French light ferry ships and one US landing ship tank are wildly outnumbered by the frigates and submarines in its line of battle. Equally sad the airforce has 10 Iroquois, 6 small transports (CASA C212) and 3, count them, 3 C-130s. Most of the money goes on F-16s and combat aircraft. The Chileans have been annoying the Americans by kicking the tyres of Mi-17s, which as the Thais have pointed out are about ten times better value for money than a Blackhawk. The Navy and Airforce have another 35,000 personnel between them.

Chile is 4,300 kilometres long and on average 175 kilometres wide. Chile's mountainous border to the East is mostly shared with Argentina, with Northern borders with Peru and Bolivia. Since the collapse of the fascist regimes in both Argentina and Chile relations between the two countries have improved markedly and there is now a clear spirit of cooperation. Both Peru and Bolivia are potential sources of friction but neither nation is strong enough economically to sustain a war with Chile.

In short Chile does have a need for a defence force that can deal with insurgency style conflicts and fake "guerilla" movements sponsored by grumpy elements among its Northern neighbours. For this it needs professional infantry, a much better airforce and mechanisation better suited to these sorts of operations.

But while Chile has had diplomatic stoushes in the past, under an all-hazards defence framework it is impossible to overlook the 28 major earthquakes it has had in the past 100 years. Two of these are among the top five largest earthquakes in recorded history.

Given a 20-year capital expenditure cycle it is almost certain that the Chilean armed forces will have to contend with a very serious earthquake five times in that cycle. Sure as God made little apples these earthquakes will require the assistance of agencies beyond the Carabineros, i.e the rest of the Defence Ministry.

The military establishment cannot prevent an earthquake but it can reduce the opportunity cost of an earthquake by establishing law and order, supply and returning critical services so that civilian operations can resume as fast as possible. This would seem to be a natural task for the Chilean military.

Were I an incoming Chilean president with a business bent this is what I would be asking myself. "We employ 110,000 personnel in the Defence force. That's neally 12% of the population of Concepcion. Did our people really get their money's worth from this vast collection of manpower and machinery after the earthquake? Or are these just a bunch of strutters waiting to plot another coup or bomb a bunch of no-hopers from up North?"

And I think what I'd be wanting to see is much less emphasis on buying second hand big guns and a lot more on rapid deployment, field engineering and logistics, and low intensity warfare training and management. I would definitely be wanting to hear about a volunteer civil defence command using military budget.

I'd also think about different equipment. Chile's biggest problem is the United States. It is notable that Chile is spending US$900 million on 46 F-16s while Peru is spending half that on the better Mig-29. Chile looked at the HAL Dhruv which is an excellent value light helicopter but ended up with the Bell 212 instead. Essentially Chile has to tell the US where to stick its military bullying.

That would mean:

Lots more medium helicopters (particularly the Russian Mi-17). It's big, it's cheap, there are plenty of parts and it has the right specs for military and civilian applications. Its great for logistics support, troop insertion and even firefighting. Chile was bullied out of buying them by the US which ironically is using them more and more in Afghanistan. It's also notable that Peru has 23 of them.

For light helicopters the HAL Dhruv is perfect. Its cheap, its high altitude and its got good capacity.

Lots more logistics trucks like the Indian TATA LPTA 1623 7.5 tonne truck. Cheap. Rugged, Used to high altitudes and temperature extremes. This is no piece of German perfection but when you need numbers it will do.

And I'd be looking pretty hard at the South African RG-35 for armoured patrol. It can carry 15 tonnes or 15 troops. It's mean enough to deal with both insurgents and rioters, but not a full-on combat vehicle.

All of these systems have dual use. i.e they can be used for civilian emergencies as well as military ones. The helicopters and the trucks can provide aid, fire fighting, water, and many more capabilities besides.

While Chile has bought its Leopards for combat I prefer a Rooikat(above) over a Leopard in Chile's terrain. The Rooikat dealt very effectively with T-55s in Africa (Peru's main MBT) and has the speed and mobility to engage Peruvian tanks in manouvre warfare. Yes, the Leopard can engage in slug-em-out engagements but it relies on air support and could be quickly surprised. . The Rooikat is perfect for responding to incursions from outside the immediate combat zone (because it has the range and speed) ambushing advancing columns and undertaking the kind of fuel-supply cutting encirclements which kill short range MBTs.

The South African G6 155mm howitzer would perfectly complement the Rooikat especially when using anti-armour munitions. It's fast and can hammer the enemy beyond the range of return fire. The result is a fast moving, mine protected armour team that can deal with Chile's huge distances but not cost so much to run.

When it comes to air defence Chile is kind of stuck with its F-16s and probably has to just live with them. The aircraft is perfectly sound although they still cost a lot to operate. Unfortunately given Peru has Mig-29s and Su-25s Chile needs some kind of fourth generation fighter to eyeball the other guys with. That said one has to ask how many aircraft Chile really needs. A squadron (12) is good for eyeballing. A wing (48) as with the forthcoming order from the Netherlands is gearing up for a scrap. Does Chile really need so many combat fighter aircraft?

For deterrence I would have thought that Israeli Derby anti-aircraft missiles and the Indian Agnii or Shauryi missiles would be far cheaper methods of raising the stakes of Peruvian air strikes as they could take out both planes in the air and the air base from which the strikes were launched and don't require expensive aircraft maintance and crew training.

Ground support aircraft to match Peru's A-37s and Mi-24 Hinds would also not go amiss. The dozen Embraer's ALX turboprop COIN aircraft were a good move being relatively cheap to acquire and operate, with long range, high speed and very deadly. Chile probably needs a couple of dozen more of these with both anti-aircraft missiles and ground attack weapons. The 30 CASA 101 trainer/ground attack jets are a bit dated but like the Tiger II should probably be kept on for a while longer.

Not, of course, that Chile will be exactly in shopping mode for military equipment at the moment, but it will be wondering just how much value it will get from all those Leopards, F-16s and Frigates as it struggles to rebuild its infrastructure.

Haiti and the American war machine

2010-01-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

The outpouring of sympathy from the United States following the Earthquake in Haiti is similar to that in this country when Samoa was devastated by Tsunami last year. The parallels are notable. A relatively small and dependent island nation with problematic political structures hit by a significant national disaster and a larger nation which hosts many of that island's nationals scrambling to respond.

Given the vastness of the United States military - its airforce's budget is greater than New Zealand's GDP - one might have expected a slighly more coordinated response. But one should never confuse size with capability. A superyacht may cost the same as an ocean liner but its focus is on quality rather than quantity . The United States military is designed to (in the words of one general memorably testifying to Congress) "kill people and destroy things in the name of the United States of America". It isn't designed to save lives and build things as is needed in Haiti.

The American military is something of oddity in the world. For a start it is many times bigger than any other military anywhere. US military spending dwarfs Chinas and even most of Europe's combined. Moreover the US military performs many functions that in other nations are handled by Government departments. The Army Corps of Engineers is pretty much a Federal Public Works department. The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is similar to other Government's national science agencies. The military provides a huge vocational education infrastructure for literally millions of Americans, and it also has its own health and welfare program. In many respects America has become a cross between Sparta and Plato's Republic.

America is a militant state. Most of the wars that have occurred since World War Two ended have occurred because America decided to fight them. It has a huge hammer and it goes looking for nuts. As this page shows http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations#1970-1979
the US has scarcely been shy about trotting out its hammer when its seen a need to crack down on things.

But what is obvious is that what drives these operations is a constant need to field test its capability. The invasion of Grenada, Panama and the dirty war against Nicaragua have been launched on the meanest of excuses. The current deployment in Afghanistan is ultimately a test of United States capability and not the most cost effective way to crush the Taliban ( it would be cheaper to pay the Afghans to fight the Taliban than send US soldiers). War is the anvil on which the United States perfects its weapons in order to ensure its global strategic hegemony.

Where the US military has generally found itself unable to operate as well as expected is where the emphasis is on saving lives and building things in the name of the United States of America. Katrina was an excellent example and Haiti is turning into another. Yes, the US military has the capability but it is fundamentally a war machine. At the back of its mind it is based on World War Two. The US shows up, it invades, it kills the bad guys and it rides off into the sunset. The way Ahmed Chalabi was able to apply this fantasy to Iraq and sell it to George Dubya Bush shows how ingrained this mythic vision of itself is in the American psyche.

The problem is the US military is really best structured to fight itself. It is organised to fight a huge highly advanced enemy and defeat them on the field of battle. In reality however what it actually does is invade small nations suffering from internal conflicts, gets hopelessly muddled in the middle, shot at from all sides and retires in confusion. It still hasn't really worked out that mounting a successful landing is pointless if you don't know what a successful exit looks like. Examples include Lebanon, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. It has been interesting lately to watch the way U.S generals have increasingly moved from a combat outlook to their jobs to starting to understand the economic, cultural and social precursors to conflict and deal with those. But what does that mean for military structure and training?

In my view the fundamental objectives of military training need reconsideration. The object of military intervention should be to establish peace and security without necessarily establishing total control. The problem with command structures in the military is they encourage a view that when the command is given to "jump!" the response is "how high?". Well outside the military structure - and that is where most people are - the response to "jump!" is "or what?". And the threat of an airstrike is not exactly conducive to friendly relations.

The British have bitterly criticised US management in Iraq for acting like invaders from Mars who simply won't listen to anyone but their own. The British deserve to be listened to, too, for while the US has lost most of its military interventions in the past fifty years the British have actually won most of theirs. And the way the British win is through negotiation, engagement and when necessary (as in the Falklands) steely determination. The point is however the British have always operated very effectively with allies rather than going it alone.

The US needs to adopt this strategy as well. It means having an overwhelming hand of friendship extended first with a big stick behind its back ready to whack anyone who bites it.

It starts with logistic and medical trains on land sea and air. Then tacked on the end of that are the operational units which are more like engineers and medics than soldiers. These are troops who can work with civilians, defend themselves and others and build infrastructure. This is the big hand of friendship. The point is this sort of unit will be welcome by the average local anywhere - just as they were in World War Two.

Then around this core are the security units able to infiltrate the community and also strike with power and precision. This is the big stick. It consists of humint operatives and all the incredible weaponry the US has at its command. It has to be surgically accurate and proportional. This is the 'don't mess with us' stuff which is there to dissuade political opponents from use of force.

So in concrete terms you need a logistic train consisting of a sea or air fleet preferably of purpose built craft. That means hospital ships, fast RO-RO freighters, landing ships able to work from a beach or small port or the equivalent in aircraft. It means a completely new kind of pioneer brigade equipped with multi-wheeled transports and engineering vehicles with strong medical support able to extend from the landing point and begin operations deeper into the territory. The pioneer brigade can fight if need be but largely in self defence. It means add-on security units for naval security, air security, litoral security and land security. Each of these units should be environmentally specific and task sized. So for example a land security unit in some places might involve armour and in another helicopters depending on the need.

A structure like this would work in just about any of the operations where the United States has ended up having to retreat in confusion. It would also work where the emphasis is on saving lives and building things rather than killing people and destroying things.

Ultimately a mercantilist world relies on stability. Without peace trade suffers, It is in the interests of everyone in the world to have peace. That said without America's overwhelming capability for war the temptation for other nation's to resort to force would be greater. But making war for the sake of maintaining a war machine is ultimately self-defeating. America's experience in Vietnam, Somalia, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq has shown that a war machine - no matter how large it is - cannot be sustained in long and futile actions without a clear objective.

By restructuring the core of the US war machine around saving lives and building things and wrapping around that the most devastatingly accurate and sophisticated capability to kill people and destroy things America would be able to both maintain its global military hegemony and redeem itself in the eyes of the rest of the world. That in itself would be a step along the way toward resolving the deep conflict between the US and its billions of resentful detractors.

LAV's - symptoms of a deeper malaise

2009-10-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

National's defence minister Dr Wayne Mapp has suggested selling some of the Army's beloved Light Armoured Vehicles because they aren't much use. This is primarily because every single one of 105 vehicles we bought is the turreted combat version with a 25mm cannon. Dr Mapp thinks we need to swap about 25 of them for different versions.

My suggestion would be sell them all while they are still in good nick. If we're lucky we may get $300 million for them. Yes that would be a loss of over $400 million but an asset that sits in the garage depreciating isn't really an asset anyway. Its a cost.

What is the problem with the LAVs. Well, the main one is that we aren't engaged in a major land war war with anyone. Nor are we ever likely to be.

Unfortunately the Army, bless their cotton cocks, would really love to be back out there refighting El Alamein, and the LAVs symbolise their organisational sense of existential purpose. Without armour what are they?

In fact LAVs, turreted or not, are simply not what we need. The problem is they're already under-gunned and armoured compared to the latest Infantry Fighting Vehicles, they can't carry much cargo (3T), they can't swim and at 20 tonnes and 3 metres plus in height they are very hard to deploy.

When I looked at armour as part of my defence review. I was looking for the most capable and flexible box on wheels around. It had to be highly mobile and deployable. It had to carry a serious payload. It had to provide excellent protection against mines and light weapons. It had to be readily adaptable for all sorts of missions by swapping out modules and it had to be capable of fighting if it came down to that.

My answer was the Patria Advanced Modular Vehicle, which the Poles call Rosomak which has been kicking Taleban arse in Afghanistan. The brilliant thing about the AMV is that application compartment can be swapped for whatever you want while retaining the drive and chassis components. You wouldn't have to sell the vehicles to get them to do something else, you'd just have to buy (or make) new modules.

The AMV swims, can carry ten tonnes, and has been fitted with the Israeli mini-Samson Remote Weapon Station which has the benefit that it can be dismounted when you don't want to look armed to the teeth and doesn't impinge on the cargo hold.

It's just a much superior machine. Worse, the Poles bought theirs cheaper on a unit cost basis than we paid for our LAVs.

The real problem with the LAVs is they were specified solely as battlewagons. The AMV specified in my review is essentially an armoured, eight-wheeled, amphibious truck. Yes, it can fight but really its for transporting people and freight in dangerous circumstances.

The idea is a vehicle that would be capable of deployed without escalating tension. If for example you have violence in the Solomon's you don't want to put battlewagons on the street in the first instance. That just inflames things. The problem is the Army has only got armoured Pinzgauers or LAVs. There's a big gap between them. The benefit of the AMV is it could look hefty but benign even though it might have grenade launchers at the ready. If needed it could sprout a RWS but most of the time it won't need one.

But the LAV is not just a problem in itself. It is also a symptom of a bigger malaise, and that is inter-service rivalry. The fact is the Army resents the way the Navy, in particular, gets hundreds of millions of dollars worth of funding for ships based on the rather stupid argument that New Zealand is an island nation. The LAV was investment in organisational prestige and self-importance, not a very rational evaluation of the Army's actual mission.

This malaise in my view is particularly stupid because of the way it impacts on the Airforce. Most of the time the most useful military equipment we have are fixed and rotary wing aircraft. They patrol further, they deliver faster, they redepoly more effectively. But because our services are divided into boat people, wheel people and wing people assets are acquired along these lines in strict and jealous rotation. LAVSs for the Army, Project Protector for the Navy, and NH90s for the airforce. Its not about which tool is best for which mission, its about who does what and what have they got?

In a lot of cases EEZ patrol would be far better carried out by air. So too are army operations. Its quicker, its more responsive and it just does the business. But because of stupid jealousies the Army is not going to give up LAVs so the Airforce can have more helicopters, nor will the Navy give up boats so the airforce can do more of their job either.

My only conclusion was to abandon having a separate airforce. That meant putting strategic aircraft into a combined navy/airforce entity called Pacific Command and tactical aircraft into a combined army/airforce entity called Operations Command. Secretly it meant promoting Airforce staff in both commands to have more influence.

Its unlikely that the current Defence Review will go anywhere near as far. Instead we may see a bit of fiddling with symptoms rather than dealing with causes. And the LAVs ? The LAVs will stay wrapped up and cosy in their garages.

Samoa: Response could be quicker by design

2009-10-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

It is now eight days since the Pacific Tsunami struck Samoa and Tonga. It is interesting to compare the latest reports from the International Committee for the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the New Zealand Defence Force. Both seem to be working damn hard with what they've got and good on them for their efforts.

But the fact is in a tropical environment time is of the essence. Bodies decompose quicker, disease spreads quicker. What this disaster is starting to show is an essential time-line for response to disaster. This seems to look like this:

Time Response

0 Alarm
The problem here is official channels for notification of an event.
Media often outpace official channels, particularly in nations (including New Zealand) without 24/7 disaster management centres.

12hrs Assessment
Aerial assessment at least should be available soon after the event
Local aircraft are the first obvious choice for this.
RNZAAF maritime surveillance aircraft should be capable of fulfilling this role
Key intelligence must include information on serviceability of airports
Secondary intelligence should be some view on serviceability of ports. This can be done by Laser Airborne Depth Sounder . This is particularly important after Tsunamis.

24hrs Rescue, Fire-Fighting and Pollution Suppression.
The first priority is to rescue the living.
Relocation of search aircraft - particularly helicopters is a key priority. This is best
done by air (this was well done by RAAF and RNZAF). Helicopters are essential for medical evacuation and in come cases heavy lift.
Specialist search and rescue teams with dogs are also an early priority (another success).
This requires heavy lift aircraft and longer range rapid deployment aircraft.
While Tsunamis are an antithesis of fires earthquakes can generate severe fires.
Heavy fire-fighting air support could be essential particularly where fuel is burning.
Pollution from ruptured tanks should be contained quickly to prevent disruption of
later operations are important.

48hrs Morgue Services and Water Supplies
Finding, retrieving and identifying bodies and restoring water.
Locals will naturally be more sensitive to bodies and want better treatment of them.
This will require rapidly deployed cool storage and staff used to morgue operations.
Local vehicles may need to be bought or rented for body removal.
Restoring clean water supplies must begin quickly either by trucking or repairing pipelines. Water cannot be delayed much longer than this. (Navy divers assisted here)

72hrs Temporary Shelter, Medical Services and Wreckage Clearance
This requires rapidly deployed medical centres, engineering equipment and camps
Some homeless people will be unable to find relatives to stay with, people with any non
emergency injuries will begin to need treatment. (once again air mobility and local services were essential. The role of civilian medical volunteers should be formalised).

When thinking about a hypothetical force for my defence review I realised that the best way to provide all of these services was with a ship. The problem was ships are slow, take ages to load and it could be two weeks before a ship which was even in New Zealand to begin with would be available on station where it was needed.

I came to the conclusion that the only solution to this was to have more than one ship, a vessel type I called the Pacific Aid Ship. It would be fitted with self-loading cargo capacity, additional accomodation, water-generation capability, electricity generation facility, a good medical facility, light helicopters and holds with heavy amphibious engineering vehicles (based on the Viking design). It would patrol the Northern Pacific providing shipping services and medical facilities to islands too small or poor to economically support their own. In addition it would gather intelligence on the arcane world of Pacific politics. The two ships would operate turn about on 30-day missions. Such a ship would easily have been on station within two or three days of the disaster.

The second craft I concluded that was necessary was an operations aircraft which could relocate to the mission area and provide low level reconnaisance and medical evacuation quickly. This was more for responding to disasters such as bombings where small numbers of New Zealanders need rapid evacuation in circumstances where commercial aircraft are not available. This aircraft would carry the perennial medical team we always dispatch as a first response to any disaster.

Another important craft was the large landing craft. This is a very simple vessel designed to deliver heavy machinery to any beach. It has no capacity to carry crew but is very quick to load ( drive the vehicles on and off you go). Crew and other material would arrive by very large jet cargo craft. In my view New Zealand still needs to replace the C-130s which are slow and have limited capacity. I still believe the IL-76 is a good platform but the Russians need to get their act together.

Finally if needed the hypothetical service came with a very heavy lift helicopter with a long enough range to fly to a disaster zone. Sometimes when you need to lift ten tonnes quickly there is no better or indeed alternative option.

None of this is to cast any aspersions on those currently working hard to assist Samoa. All I am saying is that with more flexible thinking and better needs analysis the Defence Force could be provided with better equipment to carry out the difficult task Government has set it. However the first and most important recognition has to be that humanitarian missions have become the litmus test of military preparedness and efficiency - more so than any other mission they are likely to encounter.

LATEST

HMNZS Canterbury sailed yesterday (Sunday October 11) 12 days after the event. In my view this is as quick as could be expected because of the type of ship she is. And, of course, that is my point.

Samoan Tsunami First Live Test of HMNZS Canterbury

2009-09-30T13:22:00.000-07:00

The devastating earthquake and tsunami which struck Samoa yesterday is a regional tragedy which will test the ability of our defence/civil defence services' capability to respond.

The civil defence and emergency management response to the tsunami threat to New Zealand yesterday was not particularly impressive. While a warning was given which allowed mariners to secure their craft the public response was somewhat apathetic.

With a local threat over the immediate question has become what can New Zealand do to help Samoa - a nation which for many New Zealanders is still "home".

The Airforce has, as usual dispatched a Hercules with medical supplies. This is a good start but while some bandies may be useful, a helicopter and heavy equipment would be a lot more useful.

This is where the HMNZS Canterbury was meant to come into her own. Ironically Canterbury brought four Iroquois helicopters home from Samoa earlier in August following exercise Tropic Astra as part of a tour of the region which ended September 8. The question now is can she re-embark those helicopters and get to Samoa while they are still needed ?

This is not an entirely fair question. The real problem with Canterbury is not Canterbury herself but that the Navy has only one of her. With only one such ship its not surprising she may not always be available for emergency missions at short notice. On the other hand who's fault is that?

The hypothetical force proposed in my Review would easily respond to the Samoan situation. Its assets include:

Long range operations jets, which would get the bandies and medical teams in place faster
Long range heavy transport aircraft, for urgent heavy equipment
A Pacific Aid vessel always in the Pacific (with one at home)
Two long range landing craft for heavy construction equipment
and if necessary helicopters capable of self-deployment even over these vast distances

While the hypothetical force has some heavy construction equipment this is limited to a small emergency team because it is generally easier to rent civilian equipment already on hand.

The reason the hypothetical force is better equipped is that it is fundamentally designed for rapid long-range logistics missions and the NZDF isn't. The point being that if you can rapidly deploy and support aid missions you can also rapidly deploy and support military missions as well.

It would be nice to think that the current review being carried out by the Government will monitor the performance of the NZDF response to Samoa cogniscent of the close similarity between emergency humanitarian and military missions, however this is unlikely. As a bunch of old boys tasked primarily with saving money and following National's policy of begging Australia for everything I rather doubt that they are capable of initiative.

STOP PRESS

An RAAF C-130 Hercules has carried an RNZAF Iroquois to Samoa and Canterbury is on standby possibly able to sail in four days. It would be nice if we could carry our own helicopters but our C-130s are being re-engineered.

An ANZAC Force

2009-08-27T02:04:00.000-07:00

The Defence Review is still out for consultation but it seems obvious the National Party's defence policy is suspiciously like ..well business as usual for the National Party.

John Key has apparently agreed to the notion of a common ANZAC force together with Australia. He thinks linking our military with Australia is easier than linking our currency. Well glory be, what a surprise.

The fact is the Nat's have never had any idea about defence other than to bend over for the Australians. That said the Ministry and NZDF have worked very hard to practically be an extension of the Australian defence force by making sure that everything we equip our forces with is sold to us by Australians first. Our Navy is Aussie made, our airforce is Aussie standard. Only our Army which has LAV IIIs instead of LAV IIs and Pinzgauers instead of Bushmasters is slightly different to their Australian counterparts and then not in a good way.

The problem that John Key doesn't seem to get is that defence IS diplomacy. A common ANZAC force means common diplomacy. How else can it operate? The Australian fleet commander gives an order and the kiwi frigate commander says 'golly I'd better check with Wellington"?

And if he doesn't?

So what happens if a kiwi frigate commander is told by an Australian fleet commander to sink an Indonesian sub? Or a kiwi soldier is told by an Australian commander to fire despite the presence of civilians? Are we going to hide under Australia's skirts then too?

Or will we have vast rules of engagement so that every military officer will need a law degree to make sense of who gives the orders and what you do when you recieve them?

The simple fact is New Zealand soldiers should work under New Zealand command all the way up to and including our Prime Minister. It is the only way New Zealand policy can be distinguished from Australian policy in a way that everyone (even those who may not like us) can make sense of it.

Moreover, and this was the point of my defence review, New Zealand's role should not be to ape Australia's but to support Australias.

Australia is the mightiest military power in South East Asia. Discounting the French nuclear presence the only conventional forces in the region which match Australia's are India's and China's. That's saying something given that Australia is less than 100th of those nation's size. Australia does not need New Zealand's contribution to achieve security.

Given that, the intelligent thing to do is to contribute capability that Australia (or anyone else for that matter) will always need more of. In general that means logistic support. New Zealand's defence force should primarily be a logistical powerhouse - as opposed to logistical beggars. No commander can pass up more freight capacity, medical support or field support.

The other thing we can contribute is Pacific reconnaisance and intelligence. As Sun Tze says you can never have enough intelligence. That means long range aircraft, special forces troops and ships that contribute to vulnerable island economies.

Politically such a force has very different political options. A logistics force supports operations and defends itself. It provides backbone not cannon fodder, and if it is withdrawn its absence has a powerful effect. A reconnaissance force provides the ability to plan operations.Absence of information creates greater uncertainty and the need for more scale.

By focusing on these two principal roles New Zealand can maintain an independent policy. Just as important it can also meet its own needs for defence.

Women in "combat"

2009-07-30T02:33:00.000-07:00

I was reading this interesting article the other day about the Marine Corps' use of female Military Police for intelligence gathering in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although technically it is against US law to send women into "combat" it is not against the law for them to be deployed in an active theatre. The fact that asymmetric warfare effectively means all deployed personnel are in a combat zone is not a legalism that the Marines seem too bothered about.

For New Zealand forces there does not appear to be any reason in either the Defence Act or the Defence Regulations, nor yet in the Armed Forces Discipline Act or Regulations why women should not be deployed in the same manner as the Marine Corps' Lioness units. Indeed the Regulation requiring that searches be carried out by a person of the same sex strongly suggests that the lack of women in a theatre involved in asymmetric warfare would be a major tacticl deficiency.

The New Zealand Defence Force does have a reasonable number of women in the regular force. Some 14% of the regular army (666), 17% of the airforce (425) and 23% of the Navy (464) are women. Not surprisingly women, however remain a minority in the Defence Force, and appear to be accepted more on the basis that they keep up with the men rather than any gender-specific tactical advantages they may have to offer.

This is once again where the whole configuration of the Defence Force looks so rooted in the Cold War/World War Two paradigm. The idea of defence remains stuck on the notion that the enemy is an national army, and yet in our biggest overseas deployments: Afghanistan; Timor and the Solomons there is no enemy army. Indeed when people don't make it easy (by shooting at you) it is hard to tell the enemy from civilians form friendlies.

New Zealand male soldiers have always been far better than American male soldiers at getting on with locals. This is cultural, as the Americans tend to take American ideas and values with them wherever they go and impose them whether the locals like it or not. New Zealanders would never dream of doing that. The difference means that New Zealanders are better at counter-infiltration because they are prepared to try and out-local the locals if need be.

But what the Marines are showing is that there is a gender dimension to assymetric warfare that should not be overlooked. Young men tend to be fighters. As I noted reviewing Ross Kemp's snuff advertising for the British Army there isn't often much difference between teenage regular force troops and the 'insurgents' except that the insurgents have a better idea of what they are fighting for. Women are usually not so keen on war. If a foreign force is able to engage with the women in the clinics and the market-places it has a far better chance of getting the whole community to try politics without guns, instead of politics with guns. Women soldiers clearly have an important role to play in achieving this.

Ultimately we have to come to accept that the idea of a defence force is redundant. New Zealand is not threatened so it hardly needs defending. What we need is a Peacemaking Force, which is capable of using violent as well as non-violent methods to resolve conflict. Recognising the advantages women bring to conflict resolution is different to letting them take part in an essentially male war-making business. This is not to suggest that the Defence Force should lose any of its edge. Women soldiers must be soldiers, and women officers must be good officers first, not promoted just because of their gender. But their organisation and deployment should reflect the benefits that female teams, sections or even whole platoons could bring to asymmetric conflict environments.

An AMV an AMV my Kingdom for an AMV!

2009-05-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

As I write this a gunman named Jan Molenaar is holed up on Napier hill with a bunch of automatic weapons holding off 100 members of the New Zealand Police Force. He has been there for 30 hours and it must be a matter of time before he either gives himself up, kills himself, is killed or is surprised and arrested.

As always New Zealand Police are taking a softly softly approach to taking the man. The house has a 500m cordon around it and Police and taking it quietly rather than starting a shoot-out.
New Zealanders have the utmost respect for the mature way Police in this country handle armed stand-offs and do not endorse the Wild West attitude to firearms.

This is not entirely for good reasons. The New Zealand Police Armed Offenders Squad is not notable for its marksmanship. In recent incidents armed officers have demonstrated a remarkable inability to even hit a mad dog in a yard quite less a man trained in armed combat. Not only is the softly-softly approach less destructive it is also less likely to expose Police to potential embarassing failure.

But that said it is quite likely the man is suicidal and high on Methamphetamines. As such authorities are warning the seige could last days. That is days of serious inconvenience for about 150 people made homeless by the cordon as well as interruptions for the schooling of hundreds more children whose schools are in the danger zone.

Already Squadron Leader Kavae Tamariki has said his helicopters are standing by and available for Police if needed. In other words the principle that the Defence Force is available for such operations is established.

How bloody embarassing then that having spend several hundred million dollars on armoured vehicles the Army's LAV's are not much use in this situation. As pointed out in my defence review the LAV's 25mm cannon has no less than lethal option. Yes the LAVs can get close to this guy but if they fire they will rip the house (and probably a dozen houses behind it) to tiny bits.

The armoured Pinzgauer is not armoured well enough for anyone to be keen in getting close to a guy with a heavy rifle in one.

The vehicles recommended in my defence review included two well suited to this mission. The RG-31 is a big 4x4 protected against 7.62mmx51 AP ammunition at a distance with good windows and the ability to return fire from under cover. Even better armoured is the Patria AMV which could can be armoured to withstand 30mm APFS-DS ammunition. This vehicle could take 10 officers or soldiers right up to the house in complete confidence the gunman could do nothing to stop them.

The AMV could have 40mm grenade launcher slots for soldiers to fire rubber bullets, stun grenades, or CS gas. A regular dosing of CS gas would certainly start to make this guy even more uncomfortable than he is already. An AMV with a 40mm GL in the hull park outside and fire a canisters into the house on a regular basis.

With that kind of softening up hopefully nobody would have to risk their lives getting this guy to come out. He has killed enough people already. It is absurd that in specifying a vehicle for the armoured corps the defence force chose the LAV. It is fast with light armour and aggressive armament. The Polish Army's excellent experience with the AMV in Afghanistan shows that in a period of assymetric warfare heavy armour and flexible weapons options are needed.

One can only hope that neither the SAS nor the helicopter squadron, nor indeed the Police, have to lose any more staff because of the lack of imagination of the Defence Ministry and NZDF.

Afterword

Jan Molenaar held off Police for almost three days before finally committing suicide. Molenaar was armed with a large assortment of automatic weapons, pistols and sawn-off shotguns. He repeatedly fired at Police, emergency workers and on-lookers up to 400m away. He had apparently booby-trapped the house and Police were understandably not in favour of storming it. The Army bomb disposal squad assisted by providing access and neutralising booby traps.

The Army Light Armoured Vehicles were used to retrieve the body of Senior Constable Len Snee which lay in the open for 24 hours. A number of Police Officers and members of the public are expected to be decorated for bravery for their efforts in preventing Molenaar's rampage.

While recognising that Police were placed in a difficult situation by Molenaar the tactic of slow encroachment which they adopted was largely forced on them by circumstances. The only armour available was designed for combat with no real thought for less than lethal operations. This is a serious oversight especially if the vehicles are ever employed in places like Timor where lethal and less than lethal situations blur.

Had the Police engaged in active area denial using 40mm grenade launchers from close-in armour Molenaar could not have resisted continuous exposure to CS gas and stun grenades for very long. Forced into the open he would also not have had recourse to the full armoury he had amassed, nor could he spend time digging in. Once on the run, even with a light machine gun - especially suffering from blurred vision and vomiting - he would have been far easier for marksmen to take down. This would have sped up the process significantly.

Dealing with mad men is always dangerous and difficult. Officials did well to contain the loss of life after the initial ambush and the public have generally shown their appreciation for their work. My interest in this case is, as always, purely restricted to the tactics required due to the constraints of the tools available, and is not a criticism of operational decisions made in the actual circumstances at the time.

Swine 'Flu and Defence

2009-04-30T21:42:00.000-07:00

In my last post I asked the crucial question which the forthcoming review of Defence has to answer. What is the $1.6b we spend annually on defence to protect us from?

In my review of Defence the answer was simple: every extrordinary threat to New Zealand. This included outbreaks of contagious human diseases.

This had an annual operational valuation of $217 million. Justified as follows:

Pandemic
The reappearance of the H5N1 bird flu strain is reminding authorities of the damage caused by the so-called Spanish flu in 1918. Government reports have estimated that such a pandemic would cost New Zealand up to one third of its GDP. In a historical context this is not much different to the great plagues of history and may someowhat underestimate the ability of modern medicine to contain the loss.
Treasury has published this report which calculates the possible loss of up to $30 billion in the first year.
The armed services may have a role in a pandemic where public order is called into question and for duties such as mass burials however in general terms such a pandemic is essentially a matter for civilian authorities.

RISK CONTRIBUTION
Loss Potential: 20% of GDP ($31 billion)
Recovery in years: 7
Historical Frequency: 1 in 100 years
Probability in 20 year cycle: 4%
Mitigation value of defence capital: 20%
Estimated loss on occurance: $108 billion
Mitigation risk weighted period value: $4.357 billion
Annual Value: $217 million

The most important line here is the estimated Mitigation value of defence capital: 20%.
This was of course based on the assumption that the Defence force recognised that 14.6% of its task was being prepared and ready to respond to the needs of responding to a Pandemic.

My review therefore put a great deal of emphasis on capital equipment and organisation able to respond to such an emergency. The Support Brigade included a Medical Battalion (one of the few structures retaining part-time staff) while the Operations Brigade included a biohazard Response Company and not forgetting the Emergency Brigade. Naturally the rest of the structure provided the logistics and support necessary to keep such an operation working. It was assumed that most of the staff of the Pandemic unit would be academics or practictioners who would take up their roles in the defence structure as needed.

So far with just 11 cases reaching New Zealand we are a long way from needing such a response capability. Authorities have moved quickly and efficiently to contain the potential spread of contagion. However it must be said that, like SARs before it, the Mexican Swine Flu has not shown any high degree of virulence, and, to date, civilian structures have proved more than capable of responding.

This does not mean, in my view that there is no need for the Defence Force to not be involved in planning and operations of anti-biohazard responses.

It would be nice if the Defence Review recognised the waste of spending so much money on defending our nation against non-existent military threats when there are very real medical and agricultural ones all around us. Any holistic understanding of the term "defence" would surely recognise this at once.

Review or Whitewash?

2009-04-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

The Government has announced that it will be carrying out yet another Defence Review. Defence Review 09 is the first post 9/11 Defence Review and its terms of reference have been revealed to media but not as yet posted on the Ministry website.
The objective is apparently to take a hard look at the number of bases, the airforce aircraft, whether the LAVs are worthwhile and when and how to replace the ANZAC frigates.

All of this is sensible is you know the answer to one important question first, and that is this:
"What is the New Zealand Defence Force going to defend us from?"
Until you know the answer to that question there is no point reviewing the NZDF.

My Defence Review took a look at the following factors:
= The strategic environment around New Zealand
= The diplomatic concerns facing New Zealand, from the Ross Ice Shelf to the Tokelaus
= The economic cost of military threat
and it basically concluded that we are spending twice as much on pure defence as we ought to. We are under even less threat than Ireland and far more heavily armed.

It then took in other factors such as:
= Civil Defence issues
= Coastguard and Fisheries protection issues
= Biohazard and border security issues
= Environmental protection issues
= Terrorism threats
And came to the conclusion that unless these were included in the NZDF's remit and incorporated into NZDF doctrine; the organisation was too large.

All of this suggests the NZDF needs to become more dual-use. Yes it needs a sharp front end, in the form of more special forces troops. But following behind the spear head is a more dual-use spear shaft made of dual-use logistics support troops, able to operate equally well in supporting battlefield operations and in civil emergencies. Troops that can be upgraded to combat capability but who specialise in very long range logistics, emergency response and operations. Moreover this organisation should comprise mostly of career professionals who are paid according to civilian pay scales, not thousands of weekend warriors who get paid to indulge in silly fantasies about how New Zealand might end up being a military playground.

In other words the NZDF should be mostly a trucking fleet, a freight airline, and a Pacific shipping line for dealing with emergency situations: military or civil. As such it should make use of the best of civilian technology and techniques rather than constantly over-engineer the force for a "battlefield" that is most unlikely to eventuate.

It will be fascinating to see how professional this Review actually gets. My hope is it will outclass my own review in every conceivable way. My worry is that it will simply be the same tired old rehash by the same stuck-in-their-ways thinkers we have always had.

Victorian Fire Disaster

2009-02-08T15:33:00.000-08:00

A large part of the Australian state of Victoria is on fire. This map from Country Fire Authority of Victoria shows the disposition of major bushfires in the state that have, at time of writing claimed 181 lives.As it has done so frequently before the Australian Army has been mobilised to assist firefighters. New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key has called Australian premier Kevin Rudd to offer support. The last time Victoria burned New Zealand sent fire-crews to assist Australian volunteers who were at the end of their tether. Heli-Harvest, a private New Zealand helicopter firm, has once again sent its Mi-17 helicopter to aid with this emergency effort.

In terms of both military and emergency management response Australia is a very large and rich country and any support New Zealand can offer is largely symbolic. That said it is notable how a flexible military force of the kind described in my defence review could be so much more useful in a crisis of this kind than the one we - of for that matter Australia - has.

For a start because it is intended to deal with domestic civil emergencies it is far more flexible for providing aid for international civil emergencies. Compare the following:

Air Support
The IL76MF proposed by the original Review is the heaviest water-bomber in the sky. Such aircraft can deliver an enormous deluge which the US Forest Service says is more useful than that from the C-130. Air Support Services in the US operates the IL76 in this role.
This aircraft could also deliver land based units for immediate operation far quicker than either the B757 or the C130H.

The Mi-26 helicopter is the largest in the world. Much larger than the Heli-Harvest Mi-17 which is already the largest monsoon bucket chopper in the Southern hemisphere. Able to carry up to 20 tonnes of fire-fighting compound the Mi-26 may be expensive to operate but it is one mother of an asset when times get tough. As with the IL76 a large monsoon dump is far more effective than many small ones.

Ground Operations
The Review proposed a dedicated fire-fighting platoon with four MAN SX fire-trucks available for international deployment. The Man SX can carry ten tonnes of fire suppresant, work in difficult country and move at speed to where its needed. Admittedly four trucks is a drop in the Ocean but better than nothing. Additional MAN SX's could be used as tankers.

The notional Force also had a company of 48 Bronco / BVS-210 armoured tracked tractors which could be useful getting into country where wheeled vehicles would have difficulty. With a rear trailer able to carry 6 tonnes the front could be fitted with a fire-hose and pump to provide a vehicle able to attack fires from flanks or rear in difficult country.

Manpower is always an issue in emergency management. The Review proposed a voluntary Emergency Brigade as a pool of reservists for domestic civil disaster. Such a unit could use the Australian disaster as a live training opportunity and feed through teams to support or relieve the Australian fire crews.

A task-force consisting of two IL76MFs with four MAN SXs and two self-deployed Mi26's could be be deployed within 72 hours. The Emergency Brigade and other assets could follow relatively quickly.

One can't help thinking that if John Key had had such a potential task-force available his conversation with Kevin Rudd would have been slightly less vague. As Mr Key said New Zealanders are happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with Australia in times of adversity. It is time, however that both defence forces moved on from World War Two and recognised that damage from natural and humanitarian disasters is part of the broader remit of the modern defence/civil defence force.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the NZDF is able to offer and how long it would take to deploy.

Ross Kemp in Afghanistan = A disgusting spectacle

2009-01-14T15:00:00.000-08:00

New Zealand television usually trails 12 months or so behind programme-makers home nations so it was only this (2009) year that New Zealand viewers finally caught up with the Ross Kemp on Afghanistan, first screened in the UK in January 2008.

Ross Kemp is an actor who played a lot of tough guys in British soap-operas and made a name for himself as a front-man on TV documentaries with "Ross Kemp on Gangs" - a sobering look at the world's criminal fraternity.

Ross Kemp on Afghanistan is meant to be a look at the experience of soldiers in the British Army in the "war on terror" against the Taliban. It is however best described as a recruitment tool.

As portrayed the British Army consists of a bunch of brainless teenagers with guns. They have the same problems organising themselves as any bunch of hapless teenagers being shouted at by their superiors. They run around shouting and shooting and generally behaving like a bunch of kids playing paintball - except that their guns can kill people.

For the average teenage boy, that looks like lots of fun. Are you tough? Can you shoot? What does it feel like to blast away with a machinegun? Woo-hoo!!

So then with heavy hearts and lots of self-conscious tele-analysis of the kind that British people seem to do when there is a camera crew standing around watching them "emote", we pack off the East Anglian company Kemp has attached himself to, to Afghanistan.

The base in Afghanistan is 20 miles in the desert. No natives anywhere near it. The boys tell stories and cope with the heat - described as "50 degree". Then we go on patrol and finally - ta-da ! a contact! In fact it must be the most orchestrated contact in the world. The British have almost played a brass band to herald their arrival in order to make sure the Taliban know they are coming. The village is evacuated and there isn't much resistance. Ross Kemp makes a poor job of explaining that the "armour" (a bunch of mine protected trucks) won't accompany the soldiers because "it would get bogged down". In reality of course it might get blown up and that would not only be a pain in the bum logistics-wise it would look pretty poor on TV back home.

So there is a bit of a battle. It looks like a company of British soldiers plus an Apache helicopter against a Taleban rearguard of somewhere between three and seven. Real bullets fly past Ross Kemp's head! An RPG-7 rocket whizzes by! A British sniper kills the Taleban RPG launcher. No British casualties are shown. Then we have lunch and cucumber sandwiches.

How did the lads cope? Well they admit they were scared but its all part of the job. Blah blah blah. Ross Kemp looks steely eyed and tough. Roll credits and show the "join the army tvc".

It made me sick. A "join the army ad" with genuine bodycount; "snuff advertising".

What made me especially angry was the sterilisation of war for the cameras. At no time do we have to deal with the real problem of "civilians". There were none in the training in Britain and none in the "contact" in Afghanistan. It was all one big game. The real children, women and old people of Afganistan cleared out of the way so teenagers could get off some ordenance.

What kind of idiocy is this? The politics of Afghanistan cannot be reduced to good guys and bad guys. Anyone who has read Ahmed Rashid's "Taliban" knows that the situation in Afganistan is complicated and that ethnic and religious sympathies combined with some truly apalling behaviour on all sides makes it a seething cauldron of revenge, tribalism and politics. The issue of soldiering in places like Afghanistan isn't shooting people, its knowing when and who to shoot. You can't treat every Afghani as an enemy but you can't treat them all as your friends either.

This was not a documentary about the war in Afghanistan. This was a Survivor series about an actor being allowed to play soldiers in Aghanistan. The Ministry of Defence who were "surprised how close Kemp's crew got to the firing line" according to Wikipedia were no doubt supressing their glee that they had acquired a recruitment doco without having to pay for it. Even more galling New Zealand television has paid for it too.

Foreigners shooting Taliban is fundamentally not going to make them go away. Foreigners have gone to war in Afghanistan for centuries and despite (or perhaps because) the country is a medieval basket-case Afghanis have kept fighting back. In other words the British Army is engaging Aghanistan in its national sport - killing people. The sad fact however is that the British Army seems to enjoy it as much as the Afghanis do. Its pointless, sickening and thick.

What was needed was not an actor trying to prove how really tough he is by trailing around after soldiers after the enemy had been flattened by air support but a journalist trying to find out how ordinary Afghanis ( especially the women) feel about the struggle between militant Islam and militant Westerners going on in their country. A journalist (woman) prepared to go somewhere without body armour and body guards. In fact someone who really does have courage. Then we might start to learn whether the actions of our soldiers in Afghanistan are actually achieving anything or not.

But that wouldn't gain any recruits for the Army, would it?

New Generation Aircraft

2008-12-15T19:31:00.000-08:00

Earlier in the year Dominion Post Defence correspondent Hans Kuiper ran a story suggesting that at some unspecified time in the future the Airforce might be in the market for the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft.

Its always hard to know with stories of this kind exactly what the circumstances behind it were. Was this a speculative discussion that turned into a bit more because it promised the chief reporter a cool picture for the front page on a slow news day or a deliberate bit of leaking by the Air Force in an attempt to butter up public opinion? I personally prefer stupidity theories over conspiracy theories and doubt that the Air Force which is in the middle of re-engineering the C-130H airframe, the P-3K sensor suite and the 757's cargo capacity really has plans for an enormous spend-up in the near future.

That said my view is that if anyone deserves money spent on them it is the airforce. The Army spent several hundred million on LAV IIIs which in all probability will never be used on active duty more than twice (and then just to make a point); the Navy has spent billions on ships which show the flag and not much else; while the poor cousins - the airforce - fly mission after mission to rescue people, protect the EEZ and get our people to where they are wanted. While the $180 million HMNZS Canterbury limps around trying not to kill any more sailors the airforce is out there flying rings around it.

My defence study was originally designed as a retrospective view of how the Defence Ministry/Force could have made better choices over the past 15-20 years. Now I am turning my attention to look forward. The study site is being extended with examinations of future options for the NZDF starting with a look at how the airforce could be modernised with the replacement of the C-130H and P-3K aircraft.

This examination draws on work from the earlier study but also includes a look at new options such as the P-X/C-X and C-390 which were not included in the study period of the original study.

Further topics will be canvassed in future on the site at

http://defence.allmedia.googlepages.com/post2025force

A 21st Century Military

2008-11-03T16:15:00.000-08:00

One of weird things that happens to you as you age is that stuff that people used to talk about as science fiction starts becoming real life. My best example of this is flat screen high definition TVs. As a young journalist in the 80s I was told by Japanese industrialists that these would start appearing in the 2000s. I put this in my list of silly predictions. But lo! Here we are in the 2000s with Harvey Norman selling these very things for a couple of grand.

As a kid I was raised on Star Trek, Dr Who and Gerry Anderson's puppets. Then came Star Wars and all its derivatives. Among the science fiction weapons we children talked about were:phasers, battle lasers, rail-guns; robots; super fast submarines etc. Now as an adult I am seeing more of these things in prototype and on the way to becoming reality.

Take a look at this lot:

Raytheon's Active Denial System ADS is a beam weapon that stimulates pain receptors. The small ones work to 500m. The big ones to a couple of kilometres. Police and Military can buy them.Do nations open for extraordinary rendition get one free with every four or more prisoners?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System

Boeings Advanced Tactical Laser is a beam weapon that fires a 10cm radius megawatt laser to a range of 10km. Its marketing benefit is that it limits collateral damage. Its less advertisedbenefit is that when Abdul's brain is melted and the vultures have slurped it up there won't be any 5.56mm holes to suggest who might be responsible. Currently its mounted on an AC-130but the plan is to put it on an MV-22 Osprey.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_tactical_laser

US Navy Railgun is an electro-magnetic gun that accelerates a projectile to 5.8km/s muzzle velocity. The weapon is intended to be ready for 2020-2025 and able to fire 10 projectiles a minute to 200 nautical miles with a circular error probability of 5 metres.
http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2008-02/navy-tests-32-megajoule-railgun

The DARPA Grand Challenge has been demonstrating that autonomous land vehicles are now entirely feasible. The first stage under consideration is unarmed autonomous scout robots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_ChallengeThe next stage - armed patrol however is already underway with the SWORD robots in Iraqhttp://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/httpwwwnational.html

There are already large numbers of unmanned aerial vehicles in operation around the world. The best known is the Predator which is armed with Hellfire missiles controlled remotely when on attack runs. However Boeing and others are already working on autonomous fighters and bombers able to take advantage of higher levels of agility and less risk to highly trainedpilots.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCAV

And finally we have "Stingray" (the kids show) made real with this bizarre solicitation from DARPA for a submarine aircraft. Admittedly unlike the others this is just a feasibility study not a prototype.http://www.darpa.mil/sto/solicitations/BAA09-06/index.html

This is not to mention Dean Kamen's robotic arm, mind control of electronic devices via interfaces embedded in people's brains, Alan Gibb's amphibious military vehicles, etc.

If we start putting all of this together for a putative 2030 military environment and we start to see disturbing trends towards technologies which allow push-button warriors to send robotic pain inflictors out to quell riots or zap snipers from on high. In short military power stops relying on the willingness of ordinary men and women to fight and more on the willingness of technicians to service instruments of oppression.

God forbit that there should be any global contest between superpowers but were such a calamity to occur the mind boggles what would happen if World War Two's pace of development were applied to weaponry. One suspects that Terminator style bots could be running around as early as 2039.

My question then is what does this mean politically? Not only to the world but also to a small nation in one of its more forgotten corners? Is democracy destined to become a three century flash in the pan between Knights and Robots? What is the military's role in this?

For increasingly the line between war and peace is blurring. Today the world's biggest war machine is facing its toughest test against an enemy which has already destroyed two superpowers (Britain and Russia) - afghanistan. It is a war fought - just as Vietnam was fought - where combatants don't helpfully declare their allegiances. But as technology is refined to fight this war this technology also has obvious application as an instrument of domestic oppression.

My theory is that the military must have a greater constitutional stake in democracy because ultimately the military is most likely to be the ultimate enemy of democracy. Soldiers must believe that their role is to defend the liberty of their fellow countrymen and women, not to constrain it. While we rely on ordinary men and women to bear arms democracy is relatively safe for there is nothing more equal than the vulnerability of the human body to a bullet. But when one side has robots and the other humans that inequality becomes a source of potential temptation for those in power.

Aftershock

2008-10-08T01:33:00.000-07:00

It's sort of amusing to watch this TV3 programme about a major disaster in Wellington. It was becoming aware of precisely this scenario - some ten years ago which led me to question whether our defence force would really be much use if disaster struck the capital. Essentially what would the NZDF contribute - especially in the early stages of shock and confusion when military logistics and planning is the only system still functioning?

I asked myself this: "If an enemy could do this sort of damage to our capital through military attack, what would we be spending on defence? And then I asked why should there be a difference between spending on defence against military attack and spending on defence against natural disaster?".

This led me to develop my thought experiment (at http://www.defence.allmedia.co.nz). The thought experiment evaluates all hazards to which a defence force might be expected to respond. It then constructs a counterfactual force and evaluates the relative potential performances of the two forces against the hazards.

Essentially the thought experiment shows that the billions of dollars invested to date in defence capital equipment could have been better spent on a force which is as capable of responding to a major natural disaster as it is a military mission. The fundamental difference is that my hypothetical force would concentrate a lot less on defending us against submarines and a lot more on defending us against terrorists, earthquakes, and biohazards.

The main failing of the existing force in this respect was the following:
1. limited sealift
2. limited helicopter support
3. no amphibious logistics vehicles to bypass washouts or dropped bridges
4. limited hydrology survey (essential for post Tsunami harbour access)
5. No dedicated disaster volunteer structure

What I found was that for the money we have spent already we could have a force that had all of these and more. It would also be arguably better at the kind of military deployments we tend to get involved in as well.

All of this has led me to contend that our concepts of defence are wrong, our defence organisation is wrong and our defence priorities are largely wrong as well.

Perhaps this program will lead more people to follow my line of reasoning on their own. It would be nice if instead of just presenting us with a plausible disaster scenario we were given some idea of how we as a nation should organise ourselves to respond. But I suspect that the great majority of couch potatoes will simply watch the special effects in fascinated bewilderment before getting on to the really important things - like Shortland Street.

A fair day's pay?

2008-10-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

The new Military Remuneration Policy which will be fully in force by July 2009 is an essential step towards making military remuneration competitive with the civilian labour market. The step away from purely rank based remuneration will make it possible for the NZDF to start competing for skilled staff without having to give them non-existent commands.
That said the pay rates are still not what anyone would call exciting.
http://www.army.mil.nz/officers/salary/default.htm

A Captain with specialist medical training would get to earn $65,328. A Major $93,222

Compare that to the remuneration available in the private sector
Base Salary Total Package
SHO $55 - 70,000 $60 – 90,000
Registrar $56 - 87,000 $70 – 100,000
Career Medical Officer $88 – 151,000 $98 – 165,000
Specialist $115 -200,000 $160 – 250,000

source: http://www.plexusrecruitment.com.au/resource/2007_doctors_salaries_nz.pdf
and for Engineers:

Median total earnings for engineers aged 41-45 is $83,000 The upper quartile of Telecomunication engineers earn $100,000 base & $117,750 in total Median base salary for engineers with 7-9 years experience is $70,000 he lower quartile total earnings for engineers working in the central government sector is $60,000
source: http://www.ipenz.org.nz/ipenz/employment/remuneration.cfm

So a young registrar or professional engineer would have to be a Captain and an experienced one would have to be a Major to be even vaguely in line with the private sector.

Meanwhile experienced mercenaries in Iraq are getting US$1200 a day from companies like Armour Holdings.That's more than a Major's salary for two month's work.

So the new policy is definitely heading in the right direction. The problem is the quantum. The Military is still based on the notion of recruiting the young and the cheap, training them up and expecting them to move on.

The problem is the world is just not like that any more. Military systems and the entire military task has become far too complex to give to a bunch of lunkheads you've just taught how to shoot a gun in the right direction. Today's military are involved in complex, sensitive situations where decisions at even the level of the corporal can have significant implications at national levels. The technology - even for the infantry - is getting more complicated all the time. So a soldier on a check-point watching out for suicide bombers has to assess the tactical situation, the technical environment (for remote triggers) the political situation and even the media situation all while trying to avoid getting killed. We cannot treat our infantry like lunkheads, the job is simply too big.

Once again it all comes back to headcount. If you have fewer people you can afford to pay them more but you can only afford to have fewer people if you are far more ruthless about deciding what you will or will not try to do.

As I have said (probably once too often) in my view the NZDF's main fault is trying to be a WW2 military and a post 9/11 military at the same time. The simple fact is we are trying to do too many things with a military which on comparison to nations of a similar size and strategic situation is too large.

We are not threatened by submarines and yet we have a large anti-submarine warfare capability (2 MEKO frigates, Seasprite helicopters + Orions worth about half the NZDFs working capital). Our emphasis in armour has been on combat rather than logistics making our 105 LAVs too aggressive to deploy for peacekeeping operations where logistics are more important.
All in all our military has small mans disease. It wants to show it's tough all the time rather than deal with the real issues which are mostly dual-use logistic support, low intensity warfare and high impact globally mobile anti-terror operations.

The point of my Defence Review was to show that it is possible to reduce the size of the Defence Force, refocus on a dual-use military for both military and civilian security from all hazards and achieve all the mission objectives of any post 9/11 environment in a way that is more satisfying ( and better paid) for defence staff.

The MRP is a good step toward this goal, but it is just the first on a very long journey.

The Little Defence Force that Couldn't

2008-09-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

Perfectly timed to enter into the election year debate the Defence Force annual report is more interesting for the politics that surrounds it than its actual content.

Defence Force Commander Jerry Mataparae has thrown a political football into the election line up neatly down the middle providing an opportunity for both sides to take up his professional cause: and scrum over the state of the Defence Force.

On Morning Report this morning National's Dr Wayne Mapp effectively demonstrated National's normal response to defence policy: ignorant bluster, while Phil Goff appeared unnecessarily defensive. Dr Mapp's amazing declaration that we have 700 LAVs (we have 105) combined with his raving about the Skyhawks demonstrated that when it comes to Defence, National's strategy is to make a lot of hairy chested noise but not bother too much about the details. Historically National's approach to defence has been hypocritical to say the least, relying heavily on cuddling up to Australia and the United States while letting Defence languish in terms of budgets and acquisitions. At times the NZDF under National was so short of ammunition they had to cancel exercises.

By contrast Labour has invested heavily in the defence force overseeing the investment in ANZAC frigates (3rd Labour Government), NH90 helicopters, C-130 and P-3K upgrades and increasing numbers by 1,000 personnel. Labour has also invested in bases and facilities that years under National were in a sad state of disrepair.

But what Labour has not done is seriously examined the structure and purpose of a defence force of a small island nation in the Pacific in the context of the post 9/11 world. The result is clear in the 2008 Annual Report: A defence force doing too many things because it has always done them and not doing the new things it ought to be doing. No wonder the force is stretched! It is trying to be a World War Two style defence force as well as being a post 9/11 defence force. Until someone tells the NZDF to drop all the World War Two nonsense and just focus on real defence needs in a world where the boundaries between military and civilian life are increasingly blurred it will continue to be stretched.

So far Labour's response has simply been to throw money at the problem. In fact it has thrown so much money at the problem the Audit Office is seriously starting to question where it is all going. The NH90 helicopters are a case in point with the budget balloning over the years the acquisition has been in train in a way which is odd - even by military standards.

Unfortunately for most New Zealanders defence is a very obscure area of Government activity. Most have no idea about Defence at all other than the annual ANZAC parade where children 'remember' people they never knew who died in wars they don't understand. It has become a rite and a ritual which like all rituals is increasingly disconnected from reality. Those who have had anything to do with Defence tend to be very much in the "hairy chested" World War Two mode where they imagine New Zealand to be under threat from the Japanese or the Russians. And then there are the kid 'enthusiasts' who really just want to play soldiers with a whole bunch of lethal gear but who don't understand the importance of low intensity warfare techniques in the South Pacific, the importance of logistics, the growing importance of dual use humanitarian operations or even the role of politics. So what the public gets is a vague sense that the defence force does 'something' with a whole bunch of equipment which is perpetually breaking down.

This brings us to the question of the threatened "white paper" on defence which Dr Mapp thinks will help solve the problems of Defence.

Unfortunately it almost certainly won't. The reason is the politics is split. The hairy chests want a World War Two military they remember. The kids want toys. The Defence Force itself wants to be taken seriously by Australia, Singapore and other nations which are 4,800 nautical miles closer (that's a fifth of the globe) to areas of potential military friction and which spend way more of their much larger GDPs than we do. But the average New Zealander just wants a force that doesn't cost much (lower taxes) does good work in the islands and afghanistan, come to the rescue in disasters and who aren't bloody embarassing (like aircraft that break down or being unable to arrest foreign trawlers because they can outrun our boats, ignore our patrol aircraft, and are too far out for our helicopters).

The result will almost certainly end up looking like the 2000 Defence Review but probably with some damn fool RSA style recommendation in favour of a combat squadron which like the Skyhawks will cost a fortune and deliver practically nothing against the defence force's objectives (other than the ones which involve cuddling up to Australia).

In my view the Defence Force/Ministry of Defence structure does need significant change. Unfortunately the change that is needed is incompatible with the capital acquisitions Labour has already made. We are stuck with the ANZAC frigates, the LAV IIIs and the NH90s for at least another 20 years. If we are clever we may at least be able to reorganise the force into one that is more focused on the post 9/11 world and less based on World War two heritage. But it will still be 2030 before there is any real hope for aligning our capital acquisitions with the kind of structure we really need and by then the world may well have changed shape all over again.

Audit Office Report

2008-07-02T02:11:00.000-07:00

The Audit Office's Reporting the progress of defence acquisition project report is a serious indictment on the structure and nature of New Zealand's armed services. In twenty years of watching Government I have never seen a report like it. Essentially the Audit Office has published a report accusing the Defence establishment of obscurantism over its procurement processes in an unprecedented display of frustration by one government agency with another.

In New Zealand Government agencies don't publish this sort of report without severe provocation. Certainly the Audit Office accepts and welcomes the Defence Ministry's claim that it will continue to work with the Audit Office, but this is cant. The Audit Office must be furious to publish such a trenchant criticism and the numbers tell us why.

The first and most important number is that of the year 2005 first mentioned by the Auditor General in the sentence:

In my 2005/06 Annual Plan, I indicated my intention to carry out a performance audit to identify and report changes to costs, time frames, and essential user requirements in selected defence acquisition projects.

It is now 2008. The Defence established were given plenty of warning and yet here we are three years later with the Auditor General releasing an interim report because his staff can't get straight answers from the Ministry/NZDF. Why?

Then there is the track record of the projects themselves. The most expensive ones have been seriously over budget often with no adequate explanation. The Audit Office says many changes have no records to explain them on file. The Defence information systems have not kept records despite the fact they were told three years ago the Audit Office would be investigating. Why?

Then there are the projects themselves. Some, such as the NH90 helicopter are seriously over budget. Some, such as Project Protector have fallen behind schedule. Nearly all the estimates provided to Cabinet for sign-off have been little better than "intelligent guesses" of the eventual cost. In nearly all cases delays have added significantly to project cost.

Altogether the Audit Office paints a picture of a service which has nothing but contempt for the civil institutions it is meant to serve. The Service is more self-serving than serving the public and cannot provide its civil masters with adequate explanations of how and why it spends the vast sums that it does. It perpetuates the myth that civilians cannot possibly understand the military world, that the defence service are the experts and that we should trust them, because they know what they are doing.

This is the fundamental problem with disconnecting the military from civilian concerns. The military thinks its job is to provide an armed force for the military expression of Government foreign policy. Its task is to liaise with other militaries in order to take part in the hairy chested adventuresome world of masculine inter-state bonding. And that's it. Its toy soldiers on a grand scale.

In my view while this view of the military remains in place it will remain very difficult to get any sense out of the secrecy shrouded military world. They will continue to define acquisitions projects based on solely military criteria where the utility of their "toys" cannot be questioned because they are meant to be the sole providers of military advice. Thus the whole funder-provider split which Treasury pushed on the Services (and the rest of the public service) in the 80s is a complete sham because everything ties back to specifications dreamt up by the NZDF.

The fundamental problem is that the Quigley Review was wrong. Wrong because its assessment of the role of the military was not based on a wide enough scope and because its only funding rationale was business as usual. My review assumptions is that the military exists to provide a service to protect New Zealanders in the case of emergencies outside the scope of business as usual. This means that the service must be prepared to deal with all extraordinary hazards capable of mounting a significant threat to New Zealand's regional and civil economic structures. These include bio-terrorism, cyber-terrorism, geophysical and flooding disaster, EEZ resource security, as well as anti-democratic nutters with bombs and machine-guns.

In the course of the review I also questioned whether the NZDF policy of deferring to Australia in all things was really a very sensible one. I could not find many cases (The Harris radio's being a notable exception) where the Australian lead really was the best or most economic choice for achieving the broader scope of emergency response we required.

In the end the Audit Office may get some answers on why the Defence Force has such a poor record in cost estimation and project management. I fear however, they will only get part of the answer because they are only able to ask part of the question.

Pacific trade security

2008-05-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

The recent spat in the news over the Pacific Forum Line saw shareholders register their extreme unease at the suggesting that the line (which is 29% owned by Papua New Guinea, 23% owned by the NZ Government with a similar share owned by Fiji) might be sold to competitors Pacific Direct Line. At the same time there is dissatisfaction from the smallest Pacific Islands ( Niue, Kiribati, Solomons, and Marshall Islands) over the costs of landing shipping containers compared to those at larger Ports. While it is inevitable that the smaller countries will not enjoy the same economies of scale as their larger neighbours it must make attracting business development to these already marginal nations all the more difficult when competitors can offer lower operating costs.

This is a matter of national security interest to New Zealand. We have already seen the effect of economic collapse in the Solomons and while there are no signs of the communal violence that occurred there in Niue or Kiribati whether it is through the deployment of troops on the ground or the increase in the need for aid, one way or another New Zealand ends up having to do something about the economically precarious islands of the remote Pacific - if its influence is not to be displaced by other nations.

Because it is so hide bound by tradition it is only now recognising its issues relating to safety and drunkenness the Royal New Zealand Navy has never looked beyond the end of its guns when it has come to New Zealand's greater security concerns. For the Navy the big excitement is pouncing on Dhows in the Persian Gulf or playing ASW with Indonesian "boomers" (old, loud submarines) in the Timor Sea. And while I'm sure everyone gets quite a rush from this kind of activity I for one fail to see how either has much to do with our regional security compared to the stability of our Pacific neighbours.

And when it comes to preserving security there is no better remedy to resentment and the politics of divide-and-rule than good old fashioned trade. Provide opportunities for trade and you reduce unemployment and the need for aid. Unfortunately there are a few basic economic facts that make trade in vastly dispersed, under-developed, and scantily populated islands unprofitable.

One could argue the PFL is an obvious take-over target with revenues of 62 million and net assets of $26 million. However the nature of inter-Governmental ownership makes this unlikely. On the other hand it is obvious that the current management, rightly, sees the role of the line as being a commercial business. And it would be hard to see a case for such an enterprise subsidising routes which simply don't stack up. To go down that path would be to invite the worst kind of political cronyism hich would ultimately fail, both economically and politically.

All of that aside there is no doubt that the remoter islands are suffering from market failure. Given their circumstances they may start to entertain novel ideas to generate income. Vanuatu for instance, has already become the Luxembourg of the South Pacific, if not in GDP/Capita and style then at least in terms of money laundering. Which islands will become the first to become Japan's Pacific whale processessing centre or China's new pacific air base. Just because the American's used to treat the Pacific as their 'lake' doesn't mean t will remain so for the rest of the 21st Century.

This is where in my view the role of the Navy as a long term strategic asset could have been realised. In my review I proposed not warships but aid/hospital ships for the Navy, modelled on the Chilean Navy's Transport 41 Aquiles. This is a very modest boat capable of carrying a company at a squeeze. But most of the time it carries containers (up to 36), cars, and other material along Chile's long coast or out to its Antarctic bases. The ship I proposed was slightly less modest incorporating a small surgical hospital as well. Nevertheless, in addition to providing aid, such ships could also carry a small commercial cargo for islands not served by commercial lines. The ships would then become a combination of floating clinic, market and, naturally source of intelligence, on the incredibly small but complex world of island politics.

Contrast this to the thrashing around of HMNZS Canterbury which so far has been marginally successful at the amphibious landings she was originally procured for.

My review concluded that for amphibious landings it was cheaper and simpler to procure a proper army landing ship - a big one (US$26m). Such vessels are built to land vehicles (eg 20 Abrams Tanks) direct on to a shore. No, they don't have facilities for crew (they would accompany in an aid/transport ship), but they can carry a lot of heavy material a long way and land it closest to where its needed. Good for military or disaster relief operations equally. But when they aren't needed for these things?

Well, the Government has recently announced it will be spending $36 million in support of its Sea Change coastal shipping policy in order to encourage the development of shipping lanes over highway lanes. The problem is they are trying to do this without reinstating cabotage (the rule that coastal ships fall under domestic ownership, pay rates and employment law). The result is that the foreign shipping lines will continue to dominate our coastal shipping industry because they simply don't face the same costs as local competitors and achieve greater economies of scale. The only development likely to assist New Zealand coastal shipping is the trend by major international lines to ever-larger ships which make fewer Port calls per country.

However the major difficulty with sea-lanes as opposed to road lanes is that of marginal costs. While ships can carry a lot they are much more expensive than trucks. It is easy to add one more truckload or take it away again. Not so ships. This means that each increment in lane capacity (ship) can only come when the need for that capacity is dire and the reliability of the existing service is in question.

While it is never a good idea for Government agencies to compete with the private sector the ships proposed in my review could have made a useful contribution to the development of coastal shipping by providing additional capacity on a semi-commercial basis to existing shipping lines. In effect the lines would bid for subsidised capital on the understanding that it could be withdrawn for emergencies. This would keep the crews and ships busy, increase the frequency of regular sailings for coastal shipping lines thereby encouraging more use of the mode. The only trick would be to avoid the situation where one operator relies on the subsidised service to hold out competition. Thus the contracts would be only of short duration so that where a route proves itself an operator will want to secure their own ship (either by lease or purchase) rather than be exposed to the possibility of losing a Navy ship to a competitors bid.

The Defence Force likes to somehow imagine that it lives in a world removed from the marts of trade. In fact the object of every defence force is to preserve them. There is no threat to New Zealand's trade from submarines or aircraft - and even if there were the RNZN would not make any difference to it. However by getting down and dirty and mixing in the world of trade the Navy could have delivered a lot more real security in our region then it thinks its doing at the moment.

Technology or Glory?

2008-04-28T17:56:00.000-07:00

The documentary “Reluctant Hero” about Corporal Bill Apiata V.C which screened this ANZAC day on Television One provided a limited insight into the type of long range patrols the Special Air Service carries out in Afghanistan. It was impossible to explain Corp Apiata’s incredible act of fearlessness without showing how these patrols operate and what they look like.

Key to the patrol is the patrol truck based on the BAE Systems Pinzgauer. Like the 30 cwt trucks of the SAS's WW2 antecedents, the Long Range Desert Patrol, the truck is equipped for speed and firepower. There is no roof and no glass. The vehicle is built for ease of dismount, speed and high firepower. Essentially the truck is all gas and guns.

Corp Apiata’s truck was ambushed by Taliban supporters, probably based at a nearby village. The vehicles were drawn up in a laager and the Taliban snuck up unobserved and fired RPG-7 and heavy machine-guns into Apiata’s vehicle. Even a main battle tank caught in this way is vulnerable as the Afghani’s – now into their second generation of fighting invaders – would well know. Following Corp Apiata’s heroic and incredibly lucky withdrawl under fire the patrol drove off their attackers. Curiously Corporal Apiata was allowed to tell us the patrol kept firing for some time after the incoming fire had stopped.

What does this tell us?

First we have to ignore the British trick of smokescreening blunders behind acts of individual heroism. The most VCs ever won in an action was at Rourke's Drift - a classic example of the Brits lionising brave men who were fundamentally desperate. Obviously the kind of patrol Corporal Apiata was on is meant to attack vulnerable enemy elements on the move caught in the open. It is not a defensive unit and is not meant to get ambushed itself. It goes without saying that unless you are luring the enemy into a trap, being ambushed means someone made a mistake. The mistake either lay in the lack of intelligence about the village nearby or the planned or actual rate of progress of the patrol. If they were late they would be forced to lay-up in poor defensive terrain with a near-by risk. Everyone on the patrol would have realised this.

Secondly the fact that they were firing after the enemy had stopped suggested they didn’t really know where the enemy were. The tracer was coming in and they were just throwing it back. While the rest of us would all be cowering in the foetal position it seems even the SAS can find heavy incoming fire a trifle hairy and their main motivation was simply to drive their assailants away.

Are there any ways one can ameliorate these kinds of risk? The lack of intelligence about local politics is as unavoidable as it is ever-changing. Soldiers can be attuned to political winds but they can’t do much about them. The real issue is the lack of perimeter security for highly mobile forces during rest periods.

Obviously there are all sorts of perimeter security technologies available (radar, seismic, acoustic) etc but most of these are designed for securing static posts and take ages to set up and calibrate. They would also be prohibitively expensive in places where there are multiple avenues of attack. Claymore mines are deadly but are not much use over 100 metres and a sensible ambusher is only this close if he is certain of a massacre or isn’t planning on coming home. The attack was clearly an opportunistic one where the target was relatively easy and the escape routes many. All of this means that what these patrols need are quick to install, cheap and effective forms of perimeter security.

One tried and proven technology that has been used since ancient times is the Mk 5000 dog. With excellent hearing and sense of smell dogs are relatively cheap and potentially useful in up-close situations where people are trying to hide things. Not always that good at sound discipline this hardly applies to a motorised convoy. A few dogs on such a patrol might well earn their biscuits.

A newer technology being used in Iraq and Afghanistan is tethered 4m diameter helium balloons with surveillance cameras on them. For only US$20,000 a patrol could fill, launch and winch out a surveillance camera 1,000 feet overhead which would provide look-down coverage over themselves and the surrounding area. Floating silently in complete darkness out of danger from small-arms fire a thermal or low light camera could provide excellent warning of a gathering threat to those on watch - perhaps even allowing a counter-ambush. Potentially the system could also be used to provide surveillance without exposing the patrol. A relatively low cost solution to perimeter security and a lot cheaper than a new Pinzgauer.

Finally there are UAVs. Hand launched UAVs are being used by American, British and Israeli special forces for tactical reconnaissance. Tiny UAV’s could be used not only to provide area surveillance but also track enemy contacts as they attempt to escape.

I must confess on sighting the special forces Pinzgauer I was impressed and could not help wondering whether my review had been correct to recommend the much cheaper Landcruiser. The Pinzgauer admittedly does have some stunning rock-crawling capabilities and is used by the British. But my argument is that the Landcruiser with commercial-off-the-shelf global support is more cost effective over a shorter service life while 90% of the time the Pinzgauers capabilities will be wasted - effectively becoming an expensive, over-muscled light truck. And by the time they are 20 years old they will be very sad indeed. My issue then was whether Pinzies should still be the go for special forces?

The Landcruiser 79 has been re-developed for the special forces patrol role by Jenkel Ltd (UK)and the Jordanian Ministry of Defence as the Al-Thalab (Fox) and is being used in Afghanistan alongside its ubiquitous civilian cousins. While a relative softy when it comes to hard terrain it carries a useful load and has a range of 1500kms and an endurance of 10 mission days. There is no escaping the fact, however that the Pinzgauer is a better vehicle for surviving extreme terrain than a Landcruiser and as loss of mobility can be lethal in special forces environments the question must be whethera non-Landcruiser solution for special forces should be considered.
Currently my Review budgets about $10 million for light armoured vehicles for the Rangers companies (the equivalent special force unit). The proposed solution is the South African RG31, an armoured mine protected vehicle. The obvious objection to this vehicle is that it is nothing like as nimble as a Pinzgauer. On the other hand the US Special Operations Command has ordered hundreds of the later RG-33 as has the Marine Corps.More to the point it is sensible to retrofit the RG-31 Nyala with slat armour which can prematurely detonate RPG rounds reducing the amount of damage they can cause.

Ultimately the argument comes down to mobility versus protection. SAS soldiers, by their nature, like mobility. However even the SAS has to sleep sometimes and as the encounter in Afghanistan demonstrated there are times when any patrol is vulnerable. At these times real steel is a lot more reliable than moral steel. A patrol consisting of dirt bikes, land cruisers and RG-31's might not be quite as mobile as Pinzgauers but it would would have a far greater survivability capability and as Rommel once observed reconnaisance without survival is pointless.

One has to consider that instead of a VC there was a very real chance that Corporal Apiata and the rest of the crew could have come home in body bags. Instead of glory there would have been some sad little tangis. Had the patrol been equipped with suitable perimeter sensing technology and vehicles better armoured to deflect RPG-7 rounds the disastrous ambush could have been transformed into a counter-ambush which would have been usefully educational for the hostiles family and friends than the heroes welcome they probably recieved when they came home.
While no-one can doubt the courage and commitment of our soldiers the circumstances in which Corporal Apiata earned his Victoria Cross is not a shining example of military success. Doubtless there are better examples of SAS operations than this of which we must unfortunately remain ignorant. But while it is good to know Defence personnel are as gutsy as they were 60-years ago it would also be nice to think that the Force was much, much, much more sophisticated.